Maurice Greene: ‘It’s put up or shut up’ in rematch vs. Jeff Hughes at UFC Wichita
Maurice Greene discusses his upcoming heavyweight matchup with Jeff Hughes at UFC on ESPN+ 4. The event takes place March 9 at the Intrust Bank Arena in Wichita, Kansas and will be a rematch of their first encounter at April 2018’s LFA 38 event, where Hughes retained the LFA heavyweight title in a unanimous decision victory.
“The Crochet Boss” discusses replacing Daniel Spitz on short notice, what he has been doing since his TUF 28 Finale submission win over Michael Batista, having an entrepreneurial spirit, what he has learned and how much he has grown since getting the TUF opportunity, why he feels like — even though it is his second UFC fight — this will be his actual debut, a prediction in the main event of UFC Wichita, explains why he is “willing to get knocked out to do something special” and much more.
Greene also discussed why the first fight with Hughes isn’t something that he has been dwelling on over the last year, but used it more so as a stepping stone in his growth as a person and a fighter.
“I can’t sit here and dwell on the past,” Greene told MyMMANews.com. “I’m so much better than what the past was. I go back and look at the fight, look at the tendencies. Sometimes its hard for people to change certain things. If I say he can’t change certain things, I probably don’t change some things about my game too. I look at it as a clean slate. I’m a new fighter. What I went through in the (TUF) house, all of the instruction, coaching, mentorship I got from Kelvin Gastelum and everybody he brought, I felt like every day, every couple of days there was somebody new showing us something. I just think I got a lot more to bring and it’s put up or shut up. This is the biggest stage to do it. LFA Was that building block to get here, and I kind of choked. I got a second chance with The Ultimate Fighter and I made the best of all of that and I’m now here in the UFC.
“Jeff Hughes even said it after the fight, he goes ‘I’ll probably meet him in the UFC’ and now we get to meet each other in the UFC. From a very humble, respectful place; I’m gonna go out and whoop Jeff Hughes’ ass. And I’m sure he’d say the same about me. This is our profession. It’s what we signed up for.”
UFC Wichita will be headlined by another heavyweight showdown as former champion Junior dos Santos takes on former title challenger Derrick Lewis.
Full UFC Wichita Fight Card
- Derrick Lewis vs. Junior Dos Santos
- Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos vs. Curtis Millender
- Tim Means vs. Niko Price
- Ben Rothwell vs. Blagoy Ivanov
- Drew Dober vs. Beneil Dariush
- Tim Boetsch vs. Omari Akhmedov
- Sergio Moraes vs. Anthony Rocco Martin
- Yana Kunitskaya vs. Marion Reneau
- Grant Dawson vs. Julian Erosa
- Jeff Hughes vs. Maurice Greene
- Louis Smolka vs. Matt Schnell
- Zak Ottow vs. Alex Morono
- Alex White vs. Dan Moret
